News

Family seeks answers to man's death

MORE THAN THREE weeks after 19-year-old Leon Johnson was killed in an alleged shoot out with the police, his family and the Hermitage community are still struggling to come to terms with his death.

"It rough," his aunt Jennifer Lyndsay told THE STAR.

She said since the murder, the family has been on a quest to find out the truth about Johnson's death. "It was not any shoot out as the police are claiming. Is my nephew and me know him and him nuh mix up inna any gunman ting or bad man ting, is a good boy," his aunt said.

On Friday June 3, the family and residents of the community had marched to the Commissioners' office in protest against the shooting. Five police officers were taken off front line duty and the Bureau of Special Investigations had launched a probe into the incident.

Police reports alleged that on Thursday June 2, a police party was on patrol in the August Town area when, on reaching Escarpment Road they were fired on by a group of men. The police allegedly returned the fire and the men ran. Following a search the police say Johnson's body was found with gunshot wounds.

The family described Johnson as a focussed young man who loved life. "He was a jovial boy and he had manners and he liked to talk to people," his mother said.

The family also said that in weeks leading up to his death, Johnson had expressed an intention to be baptised. "Him always saying him want go to church and baptise," Marie Lyndsay, Johnson's mother, said.

She noted that he would regularly accompany her to her church in Gordon Town or go to church with his friends in Hermitage. The 19-year-old youth also had ambitions of becoming an electrician and had recently applied to the Heart Academy to pursue studies in that field. He was also a good football player who had aspirations of making the national team.

Johnson's aunt told THE STAR that Marie was having problems dealing with her son's death. "She nuh have nuh more future without her son. She lose har whole life when she lose her son," she said.

In the meantime, the family has tentatively scheduled the funeral for June 26 pending the autopsy which should be on June 23.